1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for mass production of an antimicrobial peptide, more specifically, to a method for mass production of an antimicrobial peptide by producing the antimicrobial peptide in a form of fusion protein with a foreign peptide through gene manipulation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, antimicrobial peptides do not easily lose their biological activities by physical and chemical factors such as heat, alkali, etc. Moreover, they do not readily induce a resistance to microorganisms as they show an antimicrobial activity through their characteristic action mechanism which is clearly discriminated from conventional antibiotics. Thus, antimicrobial peptides have enjoyed high industrial applicability in the areas of pharmacy, food, etc.
However, there is a crucial problem in the industrial application of the antimicrobial peptides, since the conventional techniques do not permit mass production of the peptides at a low price. For example, chemical synthesis does not allow the mass production of the antimicrobial peptides in an economical manner. In this regard, genetic engineering technology employing recombinant microorganisms, has been suggested in the art as an alternative means. However, it has also revealed a disadvantage of low productivity since the expressed antimicrobial peptides inhibit the growth of the recombinant microorganisms.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,154 discloses a gene construct comprising a gene of a carrier polypeptide inhibiting the antimicrobial activity of cecropin and a gene of cecropin, where araB is employed as the carrier polypeptide, though the nature of the carrier polypeptide is not critical.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,593,866 teaches a process for preparing a positively charged antimicrobial peptide as a fusion protein with a negatively charged peptide to inhibit bacterial proteolysis, where glutathione-S-transferase, protein A, IgG-binding domain of protein A, protein F from Pseudomonas aeruginosa or prepro defensin is employed as the negatively charged peptide.
Accordingly, there are strong reasons for exploring and developing alternative means for mass production of the antimicrobial peptide in an economical manner.